Serena Issues a Wake-Up Call
Looking, if not playing, in the pink, she enlivens an otherwise dreary second night at WTA Championships.

Times Headlines

Serena Issues a Wake-Up Call

Weary Dokic Says She Could Use Peace and Quiet

By Lisa Dillman, Times Staff Writer

Maybe a coffee company should seize title sponsorship of the Home Depot WTA Championships next year.

Winners are tired. Losers are exhausted. Even an out-of-it-looking ballboy had to be gently prodded into action the first night of this season-ending event.

It's called the race to the Championship. How about the crawl?

There was one visible exception Thursday: No. 1-seeded and defending champion Serena Williams.

Williams said she wasn't operating at optimum level — calling it a C-minus performance — but her 6-2, 6-2 first-round victory over Anna Smashnova of Israel would have been at least an A-minus showing for anyone else. She took out Smashnova in 54 minutes, hitting six aces and 28 winners.

The match yielded one unusual statistic. Smashnova failed to hit a single winner. That's hard to do, frankly.

"She overpowered me. It's another level," Smashnova said. "Normally my game is not hitting winners and today it would be more difficult for me to hit one. I would probably have to risk so much and hit maybe 50-50 shots and I didn't want to do that."

Though the crowds were sparse again, even for the night session, the atmosphere was more lively than the first night, which obviously had something to do with Williams, the reigning French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open champion.

Apparently, the stress of defending this title is minimal.

"I have a large bounty on my head," Williams said, smiling.

Williams, wearing a pink dress and pink headband, embraces being the entertainer and she pulled out a versatile array of shots, mixing power with angles and an occasional venture to the net.

She added a new element to her victory celebration, in part borrowed from Mr. Entertainment himself, Andre Agassi. Williams blew kisses to the four sides of the court. Well, at least someone appreciated the few fans who did show up on a Thursday night.

"It's hard in L.A. I think over the weekend we'll have a great crowd, but normally on weekdays, it's tough to get people to come out to the tennis," Williams said. "I do perform better in front of a larger crowd. I get into it a little more. I guess it's just that whole entertainer thing comes into mind."

One of the reasons Williams doesn't look like she is trying to conceal a yawn on the court is her scheduling. This is her 13th tournament of 2002, and after winning the U.S. Open, she played back-to-back events in Tokyo and Germany. She called a timeout after Germany.

"It's been a really long year, and the end of the year is always especially tough," she said. "It's like one more tournament, one more match. And that can get you to go crazy.

"I was on the verge of that in Germany, but I had to take a little break and step back."

Now, her decision to pull out of her next three events after Germany looks sensible if you look and listen to the other players in the field. Vacations are needed all around, based on this sampling:

And finally, there is Dokic, who is playing her 29th tournament. Dokic is the Yevgeny Kafelnikov of the women's tour. If she played a Williams-like schedule, it would practically be a sabbatical.

"I think a lot of players are getting tired and injured," she said. "I think it's the schedule that does it. Mentally, I'm really feeling it much more than physically. It's hard to fight out there when you play so many matches and tournaments. The last five or six tournaments, it's hard because your mind is not on the court so much. Maybe only 20, 21 tournaments. I'll cut down a lot."

GogoGirl

Nov 8th, 2002, 10:52 PM

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_9-11-2002_pg2_7

Serena sails into WTA Tour Championships quarters

LOS ANGELES: World No 1 Serena Williams blew past Anna Smashnova in the first round of the WTA Tour Championships 6-2, 6-2 Thursday, but said she still can polish up her game after taking October off.

Williams - who counts the French Open, Wimbledon and US Open among the eight titles she has earned in 12 tournaments this year - took just 54 minutes to overwhelm the Israeli, who had zero winners to Williams’ 28. But Williams also had 28 unforced errors, and her six double faults matched her total of six aces. “I would love to improve on my serve, and also my return,” said Williams, who is trying to become the first woman since Steffi Graf in 1995-96 to successfully defend her Championships crown. The elite season finale is open to the top 16 players in the world.

While Smashnova clearly had no answer for Williams, the American said she hoped to improve her concentration against quarter-final opponent Jelena Dokic of Yugoslavia. “I think I could have zeroed in on a few more shots. It’s just a matter of mentally focusing,” added Williams, who was playing her first match since her tournament triumph in Leipzig in September. After that she decided she needed a rest. “The end of the year is always especially tough,” Williams said. “It’s one more tournament, one more match. You get to the point where, you hit one forehand too many, you can go crazy.”

In Dokic she’ll meet a player who has played 29 tournaments this year. “It’s 11 months of tennis,” Dokic said. “I think a lot of players are getting tired and injured. I think it’s just the schedule that does it.”

Dokic closed out unseeded Russian Anastasia Myskina 6-3, 6-4, but needed three match points to do it. Dokic avenged a loss to Myskina in the semi-finals at Bahia in September, and said she could tell the Russian was nervous. “I think she gets a lot more nervous in bigger occasions, I think that’s what happened today,” said Dokic. “I played enough to win the match. I could have played better. My goal was to get through the first one.”

Myskina had hoped for more in her first appearance in the Championships. “Right now I feel like it’s really the worst match of my life,” she said, admitting that the pressure of playing in the elite field got to her. On the plus side, she now gets a couple of weeks off. “I’m going to send my racquets straight to Russia and go the opposite way,” Myskina said.

Seventh-seeded Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova also made a first-round exit in her Championships debut, falling 6-2, 7-5 to Bulgarian Magdalena Maleeva. Hantuchova was a late arrival in Los Angeles after helping Slovakia to their first ever FedCup crown in Spain last weekend. But Maleeva had little sympathy for any plea of fatigue on the part of her 19-year-old opponent. “Everybody is tired,” she said. “I’m dead. You just deal with it.”

In the quarter-finals Maleeva will play Australian Open champion Jennifer Capriati. The third-seeded American defeated Italian Silvia Farina Elia 7-5, 6-1. —AFP

Pureracket

Nov 8th, 2002, 10:55 PM

Serena's been throwing kisses to the crowd for quite a long time now.

Rae Q.

Nov 8th, 2002, 10:56 PM

Rena is gonna win this. There's no doubt in my mind because she's so confident right now. :D